Lisbon story

Thursday, late afternoon, I leave work earlier as together with Kami, we decide to prolong slightly the weekend and we fly to Lisbon! We bought our tickets already in March, and we find out that it was an excellent choice of a weekend - in Brussels it it grey, cold and rainy. And Lisbon welcomes us with sun!

Access to the city from the airport is very easy, as there is a metro which takes us to the city centre. But before we take a metro, we spend half an hour on taking the photos with the murals located in the corridors of the metro station.

 

After check-in in our hotel ( Hotel Lisboa Tejo excellently located next to the Figueira Square), we look for some nice restaurant. On a street just in front of our hotel we find a nice, and totally local and authentic restaurant. I decide to go for a Polvo (octopus) - Portuguese style - highly recommended!

Next morning we start visiting Lisbon from our neigbourhood - Figueira Square and Rossio Square.

After a short walk, we decide to get a coffee in the famous Café A Brasileira - one of the oldest and probably the most famous cafe in Lisbon. Located at 120 Rua Garrett, near the Baixa-Chiado metro stop.

I think that Lisbon is not really a city to visit with a checklist, but rather a city to wander into, to get lost, to walk on your own paths and discover your favorite places. So we got lost in Bairro Alto while walking on its lovely narrow streets :)

In the afternoon we go to Belém, where in the famous Casa Pasteis De Belem we are trying this most famous Portuguese pastry. After the Pasteis we visit the stunning Jeronimos Monastery and the Tower of Belem. 

On Saturday we went to Sintra - a lovely and very touristy town, declared by UNESCO a World Heritage. It is perfect for daily trips from Lisbon (but do start early, as there is a lot to see and to visit) and it's easily accessible by a train.

After arriving to Sintra, we decided to take a Sightseeing Bus. It brings us to the main attractions of Sintra, which are Castelo dos Mouros and Palacio da Pena.

At the very end of the day, our bus brings us to Cabo da Roca, a cape which is the most westernmost point of the European continent. Beautiful views, which unfortunately we cannot enjoy too long, as it is bloody windy!

How do we spend the evening? Of course by watching the World Cup semi-finals ;-)

Sunday is our last day in Lisbon. We covered most of the attractions, but the (almost) last missing point is the ride with famous Tram 28 :)

Time is running out, our flight is getting closer, but there is one more place I just cannot miss - Oceanário de Lisboa (located near "Oriente" metro station, ticket for the permanent exhibition costs 14€).

It turns out that I have only one hour to spend there, which is definitly too little for a huge subaquatic life fan who I am. Still, it was definitly worth of making this effort and going there even for one hour. Highly reccomended!

Bye bye Indonesia...

6 amazing weeks, 39 cities, towns and villages, 6 islands, 16 flights, 3 volcanos, 24 temples, 51 mosquito bites, swimming with 16 sharks, 6432 photos taken, 20 kilos of seafood eaten, plenty unforgettable situations, 4 UNESCO World Heritage sites, several breathtaking momens, countless smiles of friendly Indonesian people :)

Kelimutu lakes (Flores)

As my last destination in Indonesia, I chose absolutely unique place on Earth - Kalimutu lakes. The three amazing crater lakes of different colors can be blue, green, turquoise, red or black - they change colors unpredictably. Local people believe that the lakes are resting place for departed souls. I have to repeat it one more time: breathtaking!

Hunting for dragons! ;-)

Breathtaking Penanjakan viewpoint...

After a few days spent in Yogjakarta myself and Ewa wanted to move and see something else. Well Java is famous for its volcanoes and that was our plan for the following days. The most popular among tourists are Bromo and Kavah Ijen - both located in Eastern Java. Most popular means also that there are zillion of trips being organized to these places. But since the very beginning, we knew with Ewa that we wouldn't want to travel with groups and in an organized way. It leaves us dependent on others and we certainly didn't want it. We then decided to visit volcanoes on our own and it's completely feasible!

We first had to get by train to East Java's capital - Surabaya, then we took a bus to Probolingo and since then we were looking for transport to our final destination - Cemoro Lawang. Well, at that time (the afternoon) there was no more public transport, but we found two owners of motorbikes who drove us (with a crazy speed!) to Cemoro Lawang.

We found the hotel and we went for a short walk in the neighborhood. Next day we were planning to go to the nearby Penanjakan Gunung from where Bromo can be seen.

The easiest way to get to the top of Penanjakan is with a jeep. Every hostel in Cemoro Lawang can organize such a trip. The jeep is being shared with other tourists. But at a time - in the evening - when we asked whether it would be possible, all jeeps were booked and renting one just for us would be very expensive. We concluded it was a sign that we really have to do this trip on our own ;-) Though the guy working in the hotel claimed that it is impossible to climb to the top of Penanjakan without a guide and insisted that we take one, we wanted to "go crazy" and decided to climb it on our own. Unfortunately when they understood they won't earn on us, they weren't helpful anymore. They didn't want to give us directions on how to get to the Penanjakan summit... 

We only knew that there was a small hidden path, but we concluded we had no choice than to do it on our own. We woke up at 2AM, put comfortable shoes, warm clothes and head torches on and left the hostel. Well, in the total darkness it didn't look like in the daylight. Difficult to recognize anything. We didn't know the directions, we just knew we had to "turn left" at some point and we knew there would be some hidden path. We assumed we're walking in the right direction, and indeed after some minutes we saw a couple walking far in front of us. We concluded they could head only to the Penanjakan and so we felt a bit relieved.

I have to say that the path was not easy. Pretty invisible, very steep, totally dark. After two hours, totally tired we made it to the top - just in time for the sunrise. This place was full of people, really crazy, I didn't think I would enjoy it. Dozens if not hundreds of them. But most of them stayed here only for the sunrise and after that they immediately left. And then it was really magical...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths, but by the moments that take our breath away...

My breath was certainly taken away, when I saw the beautiful sunrise over the Sea of Sands, and the sun shining and illuminating the volcanoes in the distance - mount Batok, Bromo and Semeru, surrounded by light mist. Spectacular... We were just sitting with Ewa, enjoying these amazing views, which we had only for ourselves as everybody left! This is the huge advantage of independent traveling - nobody's pushing you, you decide what you do and in which pace. We were so happy there were no more places in any jeep for us! We would have left this place straight after the sunrise...

Around 9AM we started the descent, but this time on the asphalt road. We were going down slowly towards out hotel, passing through the Sea of Sands and Bromo in distance. It was a very long morning for us and we decided to come back to Bromo the next day